Erin's fabulous Life

We the people competition

2009-02-07T17:21:00.000-08:00

This is Noah's We the People team. It is a class at his high school, kind of like a debate team but about the constitution. There are six units and each one is about a different subject. The judges give each unit a question and then the students give a speech. After the speech they t the judges ask questions about their speech and their original question. If you ask me it is quite boring. The only fun part was going to Sacramento and the state capital. Well any way, their school made it to state along with 11 other schools. Then they made it into the top finals with three other schools. The weird part is that you aren't allowed to see any other schools so you don't know how they did.

This is our state capital where Noah competed at the finals against three other schools. Their school took 4th place at State.

This is a statue at California's state Capital

Lock down

2009-02-04T17:37:00.000-08:00

Well last week our school, Fruitvale, had a lock down for almost two hours. The sheriffs department called our school and told us to go into lock down. They called the it ten minutes before we usually leave at 2:45 and it lasted until 4:30. I was in one of my favorite classes, science, and had a teacher that was really nice and not strict. Most of the students were talking pretty loud and crawling all over the classroom. She let us talk on our phones to call our parents. I borrowed my friends phone (because I can't take my phone to school) and told my mom. Just then the principle said that they were having a canine search and that it would be twenty more minutes. But really it lasted another 45 minutes.

My mom told me that someone had kidnapped a lady and her baby from toys R us or Babies R us, (I can't remember) and dropped her off around our school. The police tried to look for him, with dog hounds. Though, they never caught the guy. When we were let out of the school there were police, reports, and even helicopters. My mom picked me up and I only had twenty minutes to eat and do my homework before I had to go to tumbling.

Fog Delay

2008-12-05T15:22:00.000-08:00

We have been having a lot of fog this year in Bakersfield, so today we finally had a fog delay. There was another time that it was so foggy that most of the schools got a fog delay but we were very unlucky. On Thanksgiving weekend Hunter and I were driving and we could hardly see ten feet in front of us. Well anyway I woke up at 6:30 and ate breakfast. Then I got a text from my friend saying we had a fog delay. My mom had just checked the website and our school wasn't on there, but then I told her to look again our school was listed. The fog delays are two hours, so I went back to sleep for an hour and a half.

Thanksgiving

2008-12-01T20:21:00.001-08:00

For Thanksgiving my Grandma Bandy and Great Aunt Pat came up to visit from Redding. My mom went there to pick them up and came back. On Thanksgiving day we didn't do much. We watched a few movies and then went over to Brent's brothers, Bruce, house for dinner. All my family except Noah and Hunter came because they were at their dad's. Brent's sister Holly, a few of Bruce's kids came also. The dinner was delicious. We had mashed potatoes, green beans with bacon, turkey, ham, rolls, salad, sparkling cider, and stuffing. After dinner some of my cousins (all older and in their 20's) went to play bad mitten. We hit the birdie around but didn't play a full on game. Once someone hit the birdie over the fence and I had to climb over it to get it. After bad mitten we went inside to play some games. We played Apples to Apples first then Pit. Pit is a game where you have to get all the cards the same by trading with some one, but you don't know the other's card. We got bored with Pit and played spoons. Kind of like musical chairs but with spoons. The person who spells spoon first loses. After all the games we were pretty tired and left to go home.

After Thanksgiving my grandma and aunt Pat stayed until Monday. It was a little hectic with four dogs in the house. Our two dogs and grandma's two Yorkies. One happened to be a rescue dog and was scared around everyone and all dogs, but after a while got used to us. We went shopping on black friday, went out to lunch at a deli, and watched Four Christmases. On Sunday my mom and I gave them their little gift baskets for Christmas and they were very happy. Then on Monday Brent went to take them home to Redding.

Camp Woodward

2008-11-30T20:12:00.000-08:00

Last weekend I went to a tumbling camp called Woodward West. It was in Tehachapi, about an hour away. Part of my team went and I carpooled with one of my team mates Amanda. The camp had a huge gym full of rod floors, tumble tracks, trampolines, double mini's and more. It's not just a gymnastics camp, it also has an enormous skate park. The cabin I stayed in was pretty nice. It had a heater, outlets and two nice bathrooms with a shower. Our gym stayed in the same cabin as a team from Santa Clarita. We had two sessions that were each two and a half hours. After each session we would eat our lunch and dinner (not at the same time of course.) A couple nights I would hang out at the Canteen with some of my friends. We bowled, watched people do kareoke, ate, and played games. On the last night there I went to open gym for an hour and then played foam tag. It was kind of like dodge ball but with pit. I was so happy to miss school on Monday but was sad to leave the camp and all the friends I made there.

Halloween

2008-11-03T16:49:00.000-08:00

Yes, I still went out and trick or treated this year. You can't ever get to old. Well this year I dressed up as a fairy because I don't like anything to dark or gory. It was pretty fun. I invited two of my friends (one from tumbling the other from church) and they both brought a whole bunch of other people. It was funny how it worked out. Two witches and two fairies. First we ate hot dogs and very good vegetable soup. Then we went around the neighborhood to trick or treat. When everyone, but me, wanted to go in we did. Of course we traded all the candy we didn't want. After that everyone left besides Rose and her family so we decided to watch the Princess Bride. I wanted to watch a scary movie but I let her pick it out. Well all in all I had a good time.

Talledaga Frights

2008-11-01T13:22:00.000-07:00

Monday my family, my friend Julianna and I went to a haunted house called Talladega Frights. We had a blast and we were all scared. The actors had really good makeup and would come up like an inch to your face and try to scare you. It worked. In the haunted house there were clowns, dead people, people with chain saws, body bags, a forest with people jumping out at you, a huge black thing that you had to squeeze through, this place where there were flashing lights and it looked like the people were running super fast ( kind of like a video game) etc. My favorites were a bridge that went inside a colorful tunnel that spun around in circles. Once you stepped unto the bridge it felt like the bridge was going to go around in circles with the tunnel but it didn't. I was the first one off and it looked like everyone was holding on for their life. My other favorite room was a black room filled with neon colored polka dots . The actors in that room were wearing the same exact thing as the walls so all of a sudden they would be standing in front of you. In the end we were so slow that the people behind caught up to us.

Church Halloween Party

2008-10-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I went to A Halloween party for my church. Of course you had to wear your costume and I dressed up as a fairy. First I came early to judge the pies with the other young women. It was so much fun and the pies were really good. The young men judged the chili. Then after eating all that pie I decorated a car for the trunk or treat with the other beehives. My friend Veronica got tied up and was stuck in the back of the truck untill someone got her out. We put up spider webs, streamers, spiders, and glow sticks. Eventually I came back to eat some chili. There were over 20 chili's to choose from but I only had five of them. After eating I went outside to go trunk or treating (kind of like trick 0r treating but in the back of people's cars). I got a lot of candy and had loads of fun.

Band Competition

2008-10-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

the band warming up

Yesterday I had my first band competition at Garces High School. We did pretty good for our first time. I think we won second place out of about four bands. After we played our song (Montego Bay) we just hung out and watched other bands perform. We all ate lunch there and had a pretty good time. It started to get hot and that's when we were all miserable especially in our long sleeve shirts.

Halloween Candy

2008-10-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

Last night my mom and I made some Halloween candy from some designs in a box. We made some fingers, pumpkins,bats,mummies, and spiders. It was really easy.We just melted some chocolate and put it in the molds.

Volkslauf

2008-10-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I ran a race called the Volkslauf. It is a 5k ( 3mile) run that includes a lot of mud. There were over 600 people doing the 5k and 2500 running the 10k. In my division which was 12 to 19 year olds I took 4th place and 155th out of all 600. Not bad for my first time and being one of the youngest runners. My time was 57 minutes. I ran it with two Other Ladies that I tried to stay with but lost them after the 1st obstacle. The obstacles included running up hills of mud, climbing over and under things, walking over a log (like a balance beam), climbing a rope across a deep mud trench, swimming in mud, and walking in mud for a half of a mile. There was a lot more this was just a few of them. The volkslauf was a run to raise money for the marines to put on toys for tots. The marines actually run this course. They were here to help us, if we needed it. I only got help on a couple of walls.

Traveling to Kansas

2008-07-11T19:24:00.000-07:00

We Took a road trip to Kansas City, Missouri because I had a national tumbling competition. I took one of my friends from tumbling who needed a ride. On the trip there we took some stops. On July 1st (my birthday) we stopped in Santa Rosa, New Mexico and found a neat lake to swim in. Michele and I jumped off a bunch of rocks and swam around. Then for my birthday dinner we stopped in Amarillo, Texas to eat at the Big Texan Steakhouse. There were fiddlers who sang me happy birthday. We even stopped to look at cadillac ranch. All it is was ten cadillacs stuck into the mud. I found some spray paint and put my name on one of the cars. We got to kansas on July 2nd and were glad to be out of the car. We stayed at my uncle Dougs house.

On July 3rd we all went to an arcade called powerplay. Michele and I played lazer tag, go carts and a lot of games. Later that day Doug went to pick up his daughters. I got to meet my cousins for the first time. The morning of July 4th Michele and I had a training day at the convention center and then that night everyone came to the grand march. There were over 2000 athletes representing 37 states ( even Hawaii).We also watched an exhibition of some of the elite people. In between this we went back to Dougs and had a water balloon fight. I got pretty wet. The night of July 4th we went to watch firerworks. Michele, emma and I were having our own fun throughing peanuts into the street and letting cars smash them.

The next morning I had my trampoline competition. I placed 2nd in my flight and 7th over all. I was one tenth away from getting a medal. I did pretty good on my other events but didn't place as high. It was a pretty tough competition with over 40 people competing against me. Over the next few days we went for walks and visited some historic church sites at Independence and Liberty, Missouri. On our trip back we stopped in Oklahoma to swim at an aquatic center. I did flips off the diving board but not the high dive and aced down some slides. All in all I had a great trip. We traveled over 3500 miles

My Birthday Dinner

2008-07-11T15:37:00.001-07:00

Ready for takeoff

2008-06-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

I'm Free

2008-06-28T12:49:00.001-07:00

Splash

2008-06-28T12:45:00.000-07:00

A day at the river

2008-06-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

Friday I went up to the river with my mom and a couple of friends. We spent the day in hobo campground and swam in the river. We had to drive an hour to get there but it was worth it. We walked a little and found some hot springs. Last time we came there was a bunch, but this time there were only a couple. We decided to walk a little bit the other direction and found a good spot to go swimming. My mom and I were the first ones in the water because everyone else was scared. Soon everyone else joined in on the fun. We would float down the river, and even jump of a tree into it. We had a blast getting away for the day.

Oxnard

2008-06-23T10:28:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to Oxnard. I invited a friend and so her whole family came too. Also my older brother Hunter came and visited for a couple of days. We stayed at brother's dad's beach house that is right across the beach so all we have to do is walk across the street and are at the beach. The house is really nice. It is three stories high and you can go on the roof and see the beach and harbor. Each day we swam in the ocean at least two times a day. We also took some bike rides around the harbor and got to look at all the boats. Once we rode over a bridge and ate at the Dairy Queen for some ice cream. On Sunday we stopped at the farmers market and got some fresh fruit, really good salsa, and an ice cream.

2008-06-16T08:58:00.000-07:00

i am doing my trampoline routine and i got second place in this event.

2008-06-16T08:56:00.000-07:00

This is one of my floor routines. I got 3rd place in floor

2008-06-16T08:53:00.000-07:00

This is me on double mini

Garden Party

2008-06-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

At Discovery School we had a service project to do. A group of my friends decided to fix up the garden next to the school. We pulled weeds, planted flowers and made everything look nice. Jordan, Madison, Gabby and me.